MsProject scheduling / levelling overhead tasks

Question

I am creating a schedule with two types of tasks:

a) overhead tasks
b) normal work tasks

Simplified this is what I want:

• Task a - overhead X, 1 hour/day - remaining work 20 hours
• Task b - overhead Y, 2 hours/day - remaining work 20 hours
• Task c - Work, 4 hours/day - remaining work 60 hours
• Task d - work, 8 hours/day - remaining work 60 hours

I would like the following schedule (hours per day):

a 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 

b 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2

c 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4

d 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 3 3 3 3 3 7 7 7 7 7 

Can anybody help my out with how to achieve this in Project?

NB. I tried assigning task a a 10% rsc, b 20%, c 50% and d 100%
This results in task d to start after task a (the longest one) is finished :-(

Answer 1

Use Fixed Duration tasks. 1 hour per day, on a 20hr task = 20d. So set you task up, mark it as Fixed Duration on the Advanced tab of the Task Information window and set the duration to 20d (or whatever is apprpriate).

Then add the Work column to the display and enter 20h as the work for that task.

So in summary the task is a 20 hour task to be done over 20 days, i.e. 1 hour per day

When you apply a 100% resource to that task they will be given 1 hour per day to work on it.

Repeat for other tasks...